146 BIRDS. 



In another letter, dated July 5th, 1841, Sheppard 

 writes :< 



" I am sorry to say there are no Golden Eagles' eggs to be 

 had this season. The Hoy cragsmen say there are this year 

 but one pair of these birds and a single bird, and that they do 

 not even know whether there is a nest or not." 



From internal evidence in this letter it appears that the 

 Hoy men considered the eggs of the Golden Eagle much more 

 valuable than those of the Sea Eagle, and that the former birds 

 rarely seemed to have laid highly-coloured eggs, the on)y 

 difference between the eggs of the two species there being 

 that the Golden Eagle's eggs were rather smaller and rounder. 



In 1842 Golden and Sea Eagles' eggs were taken in Hoy 

 and sent to Heysham. 



In 1843 the whole island of Hoy came into the possession 

 of one proprietor, who stopped the taking of Eagles' eggs alto- 

 gether, as far at least as he could. 



In a letter from Eobert Dunn to T. C. Heysham, dated 

 December 23d, 1844, he says: 



"The Golden Eagles do not breed in Shetland that I know 

 of at all. I know of one pair that breeds in Hoy." 



We have italicised this statement, as it bears out what we 

 are trying to make good, viz., that only one pair of Golden 

 Eagles bred in the Orkneys. 



Gray was informed by J. Dunn, Stromness, that no 

 Golden Eagles had bred in Hoy for a number of years, and that 

 the only recent specimen procured there was one shot in 1857, 

 and supposed at the time to be one of the only pair that had 

 many years previously bred near Had wick (1 Rackwiek) on the 

 west side of Hoy. 



Mr. Moodie-Heddle, writing us in December 1887, says that 

 the Golden Eagle has not bred in Orkney for about thirty-five 

 years, and that it "rarely occurs." He adds that within his 

 memory it bred in Hoy. 



Mr. T. W. lianken informs us that his father obtained a fine 

 specimen of the Golden Eagle at Firth, which had been injured 

 by a lad named Cursiter shortly before. It was a full-grown 

 male, and weighed 12 Ibs. This was in January 1845. 



